In the tissue paper industry, especially in the production of rolls of toilet or kitchen paper, floor space in production facilities is a very important factor taken into consideration when planning machinery layout. To save space, the machines for making the tubular card cores for the rolls are oriented at an angle to the rewinding machine or system that winds the paper onto the tubular cores.
In particular, prior art teaches the use of devices for orienting tubular cores made of card, used for making rolls, preferably rolls of toilet or kitchen paper. These devices comprise means for imparting an angular movement to the long items in such a way that they are fed out of the device at a suitable angle. For transferring the tubular card cores, which are relatively long and easily damaged, the angular orienting means comprise means that receive the card cores from a chute on which they are fed out of the machine that makes them. These receiving means comprise a conveyor belt, on the outer side of the curved section along which the tubular cores move, and a fixed plate for engaging the ends of the tubular cores and located on the inner side of the curved section along which the tubular cores move.
This type of device for orienting long items or cores, however, has the drawback of not allowing high conveying speeds to be reached. When the conveying speed is increased, the card cores are subjected to high accelerations tending to move them out of position so they are incorrectly aligned when they reach the transfer point downstream, at the feed magazine of the paper roll rewinding machine.
Moreover, the card the cores are made of is not very resistant, so the cores are easily damaged and can be permanently misshapen. In particular, the rolling action the cores are subjected to, according to prior art, in order to orient them may lead to severe scratching and scoring on the surface of the cores, causing damaged items to be rejected.